State of California Decision Affects Student-Athletes

Floor Speech

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Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to call attention to an outrageous action that has just been undertaken by the State of California to deprive many, many young people in my district of athletic opportunities.

Truckee Unified School District, which is in my district, competes when it comes to athletics in a neighboring school district in Nevada. What is the reason for that?

Well, for sports like soccer, these are winter sports in California, but they are quite hard to play in the winter in this part of the State because there is a lot of snow. They are spring sports in Nevada. So in order to allow young people to play soccer and other sports, they compete in Nevada.

However, the State of California has just ordered Truckee Unified to compete in California, no longer giving them that option. Why? It is because Nevada doesn't have the same policy of allowing biological males to compete in women's sports.

Regardless of what you think of that particular policy, it is something that only affects a few students, and now the State of California is depriving all of these student-athletes of the opportunity to play their sport as well as subjecting them to onerous new travel arrangements.

I am urging the State of California to reverse this outrageous action.

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